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COIiliEOIATE EDUCATION. 



AN 



ADDRESS, 

IN BEHAIF OF THE 

Bocktji for tl)e promotion of (Holkfjtate anlr (2:i)eoloigical 
€btrxation at tl)e Uleet, 

DELIVERED IN TREMONT TEMPLE, BOSTON, 



y 





MAY 


31, 


1848, 


PROF 


. Cl 




y/ 

HADDOCK, 



OF DARTMOUTH COLLBOE. 



iff? 




BOSTON: 

PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 24 CONGRESS STREET. 

1848. 



A Public Meeting in behalf of the Society poe, the Promotion op 
Collegiate and Theological Education at the West, was held in Tre- 
mont Temple, Boston, May 31st, 1848. 

Hon. Joel Parkee, Professor of Law in Harvard University, one of the 
Vice Presidents of the Society, presided. The meeting was opened with 
prayer by the Rev. E. N. Kirk, of Boston. 

The Pev. Prof. C. B. Haddock., of Dartmouth College, had been solicited 
to occupy the whole time of the meeting in the discussion and application 
of principles involved in the great objects of the Society. He accordingly 
delivered on that occasion the accompanying timely and eloquent Address, 
which is now given to the public in the belief that it will not only give a 
new impulse to the particular enterprise in which the Society is engaged, 
but promote the great cause of Collegiate Education throughout the land. 

Theron Baldwin, Secretary. 
July 7, 1848. 

*^* Donations to the Society may be sent to the Treasurer, Marcus 
Wilbur, Esq., 3 Pine Street, New York. 



«f'- 



•■3r 



# 






ADDRESS. 



Mr. President: — 

A man dependent on a college for his bread, cannot 
be an indifferent witness to the value of such institu- 
tions ; he will hardly be thought impartial. And yet 
there is a kind of acquaintance with academic life 
possessed to the same degree by nobody else. To 
men engaged in other pursuits, the routine of scholastic 
duties, the incidents of college history, the style of man- 
ners and the tone of society prevalent in these rare re- 
treats, are but imperfectly known. The gusts of temper 
that sometimes agitate our serene atmosphere, the farces 
that occasionally discompose our gravity, and the out- 
breaks of folly and crime that now and then sadden and 
disgrace us, are well enough and quite widely enough 
known. With them tradition long feeds the prurient 
ear ; and vulgar wonder stands aghast at the tale in all 
the corners of the land. Little more than this is under- 
stood of the real concerns and internal character of a 
College, by a large part of the community. It is held to 
be a nice place for the young rogue to learn new tricks, 
and for the young rake to spend the old man's money. 

Even the educated men of the country, who, in their 
day, have been inmates of our halls, actors in the busi- 
ness and the romance of our life, still look back to the 
scene with young eyes ; retain often the most vivid im- 
pressions of the least memorable features of academic 



life, the conflicts of juvenile ambition, and the freaks and 
the fun of youthful adventure ; and are carrying along 
with them, in many cases, very inadequate estimates of 
the discipline and the morals of the university. 

It is not, therefore, quite presumptuous in me, I trust, 
to assume, that the spirit and tendency of college life can 
be better appreciated, on the whole, by none than by 
those whose grateful duty it has been to preside over the 
scene and to mingle in intimate and happy intercourse 
with the generations which sucessively appear to act their 
parts in it — parts not seldom brilliant and prophetic, al- 
ways diversified with the pleasing, ever-changing hues of 
the morning of life. 

It has happened to me to be employed in a College for 
nearly thirty years ; and to watch with increasing, ever 
fresh delight, the experience and progress of as many 
classes of young men annually gathered from the moun- 
tains and the sea-board, from the remote farm-house and 
the ambitious village, and after their four years novitiate, 
sent forth with classic honors and the benedictions of 
their Alma Mater, to the strifes of enterprise and the 
perils of active virtue. Some of them I have lost sight 
of; some died early ; some had as well died even earlier ; 
but far the larger part are in active life, filling useful 
spheres of influence, sustaining important enterprises, con- 
tributing to the public intelligence and social order, 
adorning the professions, and enjoying the intercourse of 
cultivated men. 

It may be permitted me, therefore, perhaps to speak 
with some fulness and some little confidence, of the 
claims of Collegiate Education to the patronage of all 
patriotic citizens, all good men. 

There is, I feel, some awkwardness in treating the sub- 
ject here. It does seem a little odd to be arguing for the 
patronage of institutions of learning, in the very place, 
where, more than two hundred years ago, one of the first 
acts of the very first Legislature of Massachusetts was an 



act for the establishment of a College. Standing so near 
the venerable halls, thus founded within ten years after 
the arrival of the colonists in yonder bay, and in the 
midst of benefactors whose munificence has made the Uni- 
versity an enduring monument of their love of learning 
and one of the chief ornaments of their country, I feel 
myself to be much in the condition of the man, who 
undertakes to demonstrate a self-evident truth — laboring 
to prove what never has been doubted. 

Time, however, has made some changes here, and 
among them changes of no little importance in the rela- 
tions and the public sentiments not of Massachusetts 
alone, but of New England. Two centuries ago, the 
university which has done more for the city, under her 
wing, and for this whole shore, than all the commerce of 
the sea, was anxiously soliciting the " deep poverty " of 
the sisterhood of feeble colonies for bread, and sensibly 
grateful for the private gift of a "pewter flagon," or a 
few pecks of corn. The appeal was every where re- 
sponded to ; the colonies gave according to their means 
and beyond their means ; heroic sacrifices were every 
where made ; the prosperity of the new settlements was 
identified with that of the college ; the feeling was gene- 
ral, it was strong, it amounted often to enthusiasm, that 
the great objects of the emigrants, the establishment of a 
free State and the enjoyment of a free Gospel, were utterly 
impracticable without an institution for the cultivation of 
true learning, of profound, severe, Christian science. 

Mr. Folsom, in his history of Saco and Biddeford, gives 
an extract from the town records, which shows a little the 
widespread popular zeal upon this favorite subject of Col- 
legiate Education. "In 1655, Mr. Thomas Williams was 
chosen town treasurer, ' and to take note of such as con- 
tribute to the college.' Contributions in aid of the col- 
lege at Cambridge were solicited in all the towns at that 
period. In the court records we find William Wardwell 
presented (1654) for denying the college to be any ordi- 



nance of God, and therefore it was not his judgment to 
give anything to it, when there was something demanded 
of him for it." p. 108. 

The institution thus cherished in her infancy grew with 
the settlements ; others were, in time, founded ; and the 
industry, the arts, the liberty, the general inteUigence, the 
singular happiness of these Eastern States, must be traced, 
by the historian, in no small degree, to the power of 
thought, the liberal learning, the well-balanced, propor- 
tioned, mature character, of which the foundations have 
been laid in their Colleges. Such was the original spirit 
of Education in New England, and such has been the in- 
fluence of the Institutions founded here. 

Now, when as a member of a greater sisterhood. New 
England is called upon to do something for infant col- 
leges, in newer settlements, struggling for existence, not 
only have the particular claims of these colleges to be ar- 
gued, but the question is considered not quite settled, even 
among us, whether the system of collegiate education 
itself is entirely sound ; whether it is really republican ; 
whether there is not something a little too much savoring 
of aristocracy in it for a democratic state ; whether it is not 
too conservative for our notions of progress ; behind the 
age ; of doubtful utility to any body ; absolutely foreign 
to the interests of society at large ; serving at best to train 
up a set of men of very little use in the world ; and by 
being securely moored in the stream of improvement, to 
mark the rapidity of the current by which the rest of the 
world are borne along. 

It cannot be doubted, that the Colleges have, to some 
extent, lost the sympathies of the people. Public opinion 
has a good deal changed upon the subject of the higher 
education. 

It is true much greater sums are given to public institu- 
tions than in the early periods of our history — princely 
bequests are made to them — ample foundations laid, in 
their lifetime, by men of large means and larger hearts — 



but the proportion of such as take much interest in these 
objects is sensibly diminished. The patronage of the 
State is in some instances entirely withdrawn ; in no in- 
stance has it increased in correspondence with its increased 
resources. It is the fashion to recommend the common 
schools, as the truly popular institutions. They are be- 
coming more and more matters of general concern. This 
is all right ; the public schools of New England can never 
be too highly valued or too carefully fostered. In them 
we all receive the elements of learning. The body of the 
people are of necessity almost wholly indebted to them 
for direct instruction. But it by no means follows, that, 
therefore, a college is an institution for the rich alone ; 
that the hard-working, frugal majority of the country 
owe nothing to it and have nothing to 'expect from it ; 
that the farmer, the mechanic, the merchant, enjoys none 
of its sunshine, and feels nothing of its genial warmth. 
Such sentiments do indeed prevail ; I fear they are in- 
creasing ; the arts of demagogues and the extravagances 
of advocates for the improvement of the common 
schools, unite together to promote them. But they were 
not the sentiments of the Fathers of New England ; 
with them the college was first in order ; the school for 
teachers before the schools for children ; they began with 
establishing a University. We are in danger of reversing 
this order. 

A New England college is a public institution — a popu- 
lar institution ; its benefits are common benefits ; bene- 
fits confined to no party, no sect, no class. If there be 
any partiality in the distribution of its blessings, it is in 
favor of the middling and lower classes : it is emphati- 
cally the poor man's institution, and in this respect differs 
from the common schools, chiefly as the upper springs 
differ from the lower, by flowing farther and making glad 
a wider space upon the hill-side. No religious creed is to 
be subscribed as a condition of admittance ; no religious 
or political opinion need interfere with the amplest enjoy- 



/ 



8 

ment of its advantages ; no degree of poverty will neces- 
sarily exclude one from it. There is not a young 
man so destitute, so bereft of patrons, so orphaned and so 
friendless, that he may not by the various aids afforded to 
industry and enterprise in a well-endowed college, and by 
his own resources of ingenuity and economy, possess him- 
self of the substantial parts of the best education con- 
ferred in the country. Under the disadvantages of his 
early condition, he may, indeed, start somewhat later than 
others ; his growth may be slower ; but even these evils 
are not without compensation ; he comes forth in the sun 
and in the wind ; he has a healthier complexion, a firmer 
fibre, and the prospect of a longer life. In him the intel- 
lectual faculties are not matured before the physical ; the 
uses of instruction are not lost for want of capacity to ap- 
preciate it, or energy of purpose to make the most of it. 

In point of fact, full three-fourths of the members of 
the country colleges are from families with small means, 
if not absolutely poor. Of the whole number annually 
graduated in the country, a large majority are of compara- 
tively humble parentage ; very many of them dependent 
on their own resources, owing little else to their parents 
but a capacious soul, an intelligent early nurture, a vir- 
tuous, generous example, a sleepless care, and an ever 
earnest intercession with the only true " Guide of our 
youth." I do not speak of it as a light obligation ; we 
can owe no greater debt to parental love. The son of 
intelligent a'nd worthy parents is of the true nobility ; 
heir of incorruptible riches, he enjoys a rarer, costlier, 
more efficient discipline than wealth can purchase. What 
I mean to say is, that these advantages alone, at any of 
our well-endowed colleges, will secure to a young man 
the best education, provided for his countrymen. 

It must be too familiar to the observers of college life 
to need an apology for the remark, that much of the very 
best mind we have to act upon, and the best character we 
have the privilege of moulding, are brought to us in the 



9 

rough material of the mountain quarries, committed to 
our arts, by hard working men and women, who have 
scarcely anything besides, which they can call their own, 
and who have not command enough of the language of 
nature to conceal the inward struggle, with which they 
make the sacrifice. I may be publishing an academic se- 
cret, but really in the country colleges we do almost dread 
to see a rich man's son, and especially from one of the 
large towns. We have some how or other an uneasy 
feeling, that he mq,y have been sent to college because his 
father does not know what else to do with him ; or, be- 
cause a country college is considered a safe place for bad 
boys ; or, because an education is regarded as a gift that 
may be purchased with money. There are indeed excep- 
tions ; instances not a few of heirs of wealth unconscious 
of the fact, gifted by nature, and trained to a character 
as faultless and a life as gentle, as their advantages are 
singular. 

But boys brought up in affluence and in town, are in 
danger of knowing too much before they enter college, 
and in quite as imminent danger of knowing too little 
when they leave. It is a misfortune for the taste and the 
passions to get ahead of the understanding and the con- 
science ; for the graces of intellect to be matured before 
the intellect itself; for the gentleman to anticipate the 
man. We know how to work outward ; give us the 
vital principle in the heart of the plant, and we have little 
anxiety about the grace of the branches or the beauty of 
the foliage ; they are the natural, spontaneous form of 
the living power within. But it is hard working the 
other way. 

The mind developed by the higher institutions of this 
country is, to an extent that would surprise a careless ob- 
server, not the mind of any privileged or high-born class 
of citizens, but of the industrious, aspiring, enterprising 
yeomanry, artisans, and traders of the country. And 
2 



10 

therefore I say, that these institutions are essentially pop- 
ular — institutions for the people. So far from being aris" 
tocratic, they furnish our most certain security against the 
evils of an aristocracy of any kind. They are the very 
best safeguards of republican equality ; the most efficient 
levellers, acting always in the right direction — ennobling^ 
in the next generation, the commoner of the present, and 
holding out, to patient self-culture and indomitable ener- 
gy, all the hopes that stimulate ambition. There is not 
a father so humble^ that he may not see his son a man of 
learnings exercising one of the liberal professions, sustain- 
ing the interests and raising the dignity of his country by 
the honorable execution of some of its high trusts. 

It is much to be descended from illustrious ancestors ;: 
the honor of a respectable parentage is to be coveted ; but^ 
by one's own merits to entail honor on his house, by 
worthy deeds and exemplary virtues to leave a venerated 
name behind him, is still more to be coveted. This the 
son of a poor man may do, by means of the very institu- 
tions which he is taught to look upon with jealousy a& 
monopolies of the rich. 

It is hardly too much to say, that in this free country,, 
without hereditary offices, or hereditary ranks, — where 
personal intelligence and personal character have so much 
to do in securing and maintaining social consequence, — 
the people are as much indebted to the universities as 
they are to the common schools. Are they not all inter- 
ested in the discoveries of science, in the improvement of 
the arts, in the promotion of a sound Christian literature ? 
Is any man unaffected by the general intelligence, the 
spirit of the society in which he lives and educates his 
children I A comprehensive public policy ; a well-con- 
sidered, consistent legislation ; a wise, profound adminis- 
tration of the public law ; a skillful practice of the pro- 
fessions, — are these matters of indiiference to the common 
people ? To accomplish men for these great duties, is 
the very end of a public education. The college and the 



11 

professional schools are endowed and conducted for this 
sole purpose, — to qualify men, by the discipline of in- 
struction, by the lights of learning and the suggestions of 
-experience, to counsel and to act for the well-being and 
improvement of the whole community. Every well- 
taught man, every great mind is the property of the 
whole community — one of its richest treasures and bright- 
est ornaments. And the spirit that would hold up such 
men to popular suspicion and popular odium, is an insult 
to the public intelligence. In proportion as this spirit 
prevails, w« approximate to the most hopeless of all 
states — that in which men have no chance of success, 
who have nothing but their merits to recommend them. 
When it is considered that a large part of those, who are 
fitted for the higher duties of life, are taken immediately 
from the bosom of the people and trained for eminence 
by the discipline of education, the interest of the people 
at large, in the institutions which thus raise their own 
sons to distinction and power, is yet more manifest. 

Moreover, the truly educated man becomes, himself, an 
educator — an efficient public teacher. His example is 
contagious ; his ideas, his tastes, are insensibly communi- 
cated to others. He never acts without doing good ; he 
does not speak without imparting or illustrating truth ; he 
cannot live without increasing the general respect for 
mind, and holding out new motives to duty. By his in- 
fluence the standard of thought is raised, and the zeal for 
improvement rekindled. To him the common school and 
the academy owe much of their prosperity ; he is himself 
a practical school ; his reflections improve the lowest of 
his neighbors ; something of his spirit descends to the 
humblest tillers of his fields, and insinuates itself gently, 
and unobserved, into all the families around him. A sin- 
gle strong-minded, rightly-cultivated man, is of more 
value to a village, or a town, in forty years, than all they 
have to pay to sustain their institutions of learning. 

There is one feature, of our college education, connect- 



12 

ing it intimately with the common schools, and, through 
them, with the common mind of New England, worthy 
of particular mention. I allude to the practice of sending 
out so large a proportion to teach during the winter, and 
supplying the high schools and academies with in- 
structers. The effect is to bring into these schools and 
academies young men of superior attainments and higher 
character — examples of intellectual culture, of force and 
readiness of thought, of accuracy and compass of ideas, 
and of general elevation of mind ; and, in this way, to 
awaken emulation and give direction to talent in these 
institutions and throughout the community. Mind, like 
the sun, while it illuminates all below, draws all upward 
towards itself. Teachers exert an influence not simply 
in proportion to their acquaintance with the particular 
subjects of their instruction, but in proportion, also, to 
their general intelligence and mental cultivation. There 
is an air of respectability in a well-taught man — a certain 
grace, a quiet consciousness of knowledge, a compass and 
clearness of view, of quite as much influence in opening 
and elevating the juvenile mind, as any particular accuracy 
or skill he may chance to show in the rule of three, or 
the laws of syntax. Many a young man, relieved from 
the routine of summer toil and indulged with the luxury 
of a winter's school, has been inspired by the presence 
and conversation of a thinking and disciplined mind, in 
the person of the master of the district, to conceive 
wholly new ideas of life, and to form new purposes. 
Nothing, to be learned, has henceforth seemed arduous to 
him ; study has become a delight ; his habits of diligence 
and enterprise have been communicated ; others emulate 
him ; a natural sympathy connects him with more or less 
who are looking forward to the university ; and before he 
is, himself, fully aware of it, his whole being has under- 
gone a transformation ; and, in the rapid flight of years, 
he has risen from an obscure boy, no more gifted than 
multitudes of others, and by only the common advan- 



13 

tages afforded by the system of education established by 
the Fathers of New England, to be an object of regard 
and reliance to a wide circle. Of such importance it is 
to have the teachers of our common schools men of a 
degree and kind of culture beyond what the common 
schools, themselves, can be expected to give. 

The hundreds of young men who leave the colleges of 
New England, every year, to teach a three months' school, 
though many of them ill enough qualified, exert, never- 
theless, a wide and improving influence. I think the 
general high character of our public schools, and the gen- 
eral elevation of sentiment and character in the society of 
New England are, in no small degree, owing to this in- 
fluence. It is a striking proof of this, that where a dis- 
trict has been fortunate, in a single instance, in securing 
the services of an intellectual, exemplary man, a poor 
teacher, or an ordinary man, can no longer be tolerated. 
A taste has been formed which silently rejects him. 

The benefits of collegiate education, Mr. President, be 
they what they may, are at least not exclusively confined 
to some privileged few ; they are common, universal. 
And the only question that remains is, whether they be, 
in fact, benefits to any body. Is not university education 
antiquated, a scholastic idea, and deserving to be buried 
with other follies of the dark ages ? Has not the time 
gone by for fitting men for society by shutting them up 
for years in cloisters ? Are not colleges hot-beds of vice ? 
And is not the risk to a young man's morals there a full 
offset to any intellectual or literary advantages he may 
enjoy ? These are grave questions ; and certainly, if they 
cannot be satisfactorily answered, we are very ill em- 
ployed, at the colleges of New England, and have poor 
encouragement to found or assist others at the West. 

College society is not faultless ; college morals are not 
pure. Is any other society faultless ? Are morals perfect 
any where ? We have, unfortunately, rowdies, smokers 
of tobacco, and drinkers of wine. Are there none else- 



14 

where ? The social feast sometimes grows noisy, and 
the stillness of night is interrupted by the song and the 
shout of the reveller. Does this never happen out of 
classic halls ? Mischiefs are done, depredations commit- 
ted upon public property, and disturbances of the public 
peace. Do such misdemeanors disgrace no other places ? 

I speak upon reflection ; and I am clearly of opinion, 
that the deportment of young men in college is as harm- 
less, as quiet, as becoming, as virtuous as that of the same 
number of persons of the same age, in any pursuit, or 
place, or circumstances. Their recreations are as inno- 
cent ; their mirth as chaste ; their fun as harmless ; their 
whole life as guiltless, as amiable, as honorable. You 
hear as loud laughter, songs as licentious, shouts as sense- 
less and as boisterous from the fathers as we do from the 
sons. Nor would it be quite just to academic life to leave 
the comparison here. The advantages are decidedly, in 
my judgment, in favor of the college, in point of intel- 
lectual and moral discipline, over every other sphere of 
occupation, for the same period of life. 

Here it should be remarked, that the unfavorable 
changes of character developed in college, are not all to 
be ascribed to the influences there exerted. They have, 
in a majority of cases — I think it not too much to say, 
majority of cases — an earlier origin ; they may be traced 
back to the academy, and, it may be, still farther. The 
signs are pretty marked, early, and the extreme difiiculty 
of eradicating, or even curbing these early formed pro- 
pensities, while it constitutes one of the burdens of our 
hearts, impresses us, as almost nothing else does, with the 
importance of that parental discipline, which precedes 
our own, and determines, in so many cases, whether the 
ofl[ice of the public teacher shall be an ever new delight 
or a continual sorrow. 

Again : it should be remembered, that the period of life 
usually spent in college is the very period, in which the 
most remarkable changes of character are exhibited. Tt 



15 

is just when the natural fears and peculiar restraints of 
youth are beginning to be thrown off, and before reflec- 
tion and experience have supplied their place with manly- 
principles. From sixteen to twenty is a critical period 
in our history — the period, in which the question is 
oftenest settled, whether the man is ever to lay aside 
his " childish things." 

The course of study and of duty is, I suppose, much 
the same in all our Institutions. It has been long adopt- 
ed ; not hastily introduced, it has not been acquiesced in 
without reflection. It has marked and most salutary 
features. At the dawn of the day, the little community 
of students of God's works, summoned by the morning 
bell, hasten from their various quarters to the place of 
common prayer, to listen to a portion of God's Word, and 
be led by the Rev. Head of the College in a brief and 
fervent supplication for His paternal blessing. At fixed 
hours, the several classes, assembled by the same uniform 
signal, meet their respective instructors, in the various 
branches, for a drill and a familiar discussion of questions 
pertaining to the lessson for the day. At the setting of 
the sun the fraternity are again collected, in their place 
of worship, to chant their evening hymn of praise, and 
commend themselves for the helpless night to the care of 
Him who never sleepeth. The worship of the Sabbath, 
enjoined as a duty, becomes often a habit. A portion of 
Scripture is, in most colleges, made the subject of critical 
examination, in one of the original languages, once a week. 

The subjects of study are the elements of all knowl- 
edge, — the ancient Languages, our models still of eloquent 
and beautiful expression ; the Mathematics, a science at 
once of microscopic exactness and of infinite comprehen- 
sion ; the Theory of the Earth and of the Heavens ; 
Logic and Rhetoric, the one the philosophy of reasoning, 
the other of speech ; Chemistry, the doctrine of the con- 
stitution of material bodies ; Morals, the science of our 
duties ; Politics, the theory of the State ; Mental Philo- 



16 

sophy, the science of our own nature ; and Theology, the 
doctrine of Providence and the spiritual life. Upon each 
of these and other subjects, the pupil is made to study 
and comprehend some able elementary treatise, with the 
advantage of a living master to clear up obscurities and 
quicken the attention. 

The most obvious intellectual benefits of this systematic 
Academic Education are, that it obliges the student to 
master something ; that it forms him to habits of early 
rising, of order, and of punctuality; that it presents to 
him an outline, a comprensive sketch, of the whole field 
of human knowledge ; that it introduces him to some 
acquaintance with the immense repositories of knowledge 
in the libraries of the University ; that it exhibits to him 
daily in the persons of experienced teachers, examples of 
scholarship and models of thought ; and that it brings 
him into familiar acquaintance and generous competition 
with minds of a high order and of his own standing. 

This last circumstance deserves something more than 
a passing allusion. It is remarkable how manifest, how 
exciting, electric sometimes, is the impulse communicated 
to a class by the signal exhibition of talent, or taste, or 
manliness, in a single mind. I have doubted, in particular 
instances, whether all the other excitements to ambition 
together, equal that of one superior intellect, in the person 
of a member of the class, when there have happened to 
meet in it those other moral and social traits, which give 
dignity to intellect, and add to the power of genius the 
charm of a sweet and gentle spirit. 

It is beautiful to see the deference sometimes paid to 
excellence. When by his ordinary rendering of a passage 
of Eschylus, or Thucydides, or by his luminous, elegant, 
unambitious demonstration of a proposition in mathe- 
matics, or metaphysics, a gifted young man enchains 
attention, and, quenching in his goodness of heart every 
mikind jealousy, draws forth, every day, the silent visible 
admiration of fifty or a hundred of his equals in age, it 



17 

may be a sin, but I do envy him that gift — a gift to do 
good beyond the ordinary lot of benefactors. 

Of the strictly moral and religious influences of College, 
it would be unjust to these institutions not to speak still 
more particularly. And the first fact that occurs to me 
connected with this subject is, that a larger proportion of 
professors of our holy religion, are found among the 
undergraduates of the New England colleges than among 
any other class of men in the community. From a third 
to one half, in many cases, perhaps on an average, belong 
to the church of Christ, and unite with reverend age and 
earnest manhood to celebrate, from time to time, the com- 
munion of the body and blood of their crucified Redeem- 
■er. In the course of their four years residence at college, 
it is not extravagant to say, that as many at least are led 
to a serious devotion of themselves to the service of 
Christ as among the same number of persons any where 
else. Seasons have not been uncommon, in the Ameri- 
can colleges, within the last thirty years, in which large 
numbers, by a common heavenly impulse, have simulta- 
neously joined themselves to the people of God. Not a 
few of the best scholars and most eminent men of this 
generation, among us, trace back their Christian experi- 
ence, the spirit that still animates their toils, and the sweet 
hope that brightens life even as it hastens to its decline, to 
some season of spiritual refreshing among the groves and 
by the altars of their Alma Mater. And many a heart, 
long after it bade adieu to those altars and those groves, 
has found, in the faithful memories of the bygone scene, 
a much needed guide, a priceless peace. 

Since the last Anniversary Meeting of this Society, in 
four out of the six Western institutions assisted by your 
means, nearly fifty young men have come to entertain the 
hope of a personal participation in the renewing grace of 
our blessed Lord. 

Of these Western colleges in general, I suppose the 
3 



18 

spirit and conduct to be as purely evangelical, as decidedly 
Christian, as in our own. 

There is no such audience to preach to, certainly none 
compelled to attendance, so quick to see, so sensible to 
feel the glorious truth, the transcendent beauty of the 
Religion of the Son of God. And it seems to me the 
Gospel has no where else achieved so certain and so fruit- 
ful triumphs. The sermons of President Dwight, on 
Infidelity, converted the college. The lectures of Apple- 
ton found an intelligent response in the most juvenile un- 
derstanding. Clear logic and a warm heart are never 
more certain to be appreciated by any audience, than by 
an assembly of young men, too cultivated not to perceive 
the force of argument, and still too generous to refuse 
their homage to true goodness. 

In most classes there is a decidedly virtuous public sen- 
timent. And the power of this principle is no where 
more active or more efficient. The cautions and admoni- 
tions of age may be disregarded ; the general conscience 
of the society of our equals comes home to us with the 
authority of Law. If on some accounts the association 
of members of the same age, and by themselves, exposes 
to bad influences ; it is equally apparent, that the same 
association gives peculiar vitality and energy to good 
principles. 

We hear a great deal of the dangers of College. Hu- 
man life and human character are entirely safe no where. 
Intellectual oecupation is no certain security against the 
intrusions of temptation ; books of morals, and the great 
examples of virtue may be studied to no purpose ; the 
young heart will sometimes go astray amid all the guards 
with which the vigilance of love surrounds it. The 
spectacle is sad indeed, but it is our unhappiness some- 
times to witness it, of bright and generous youth, alive to 
the softer and more honorable sympathies of our nature, 
falling an irresolute, reluctant victim to some implacable 
habit, some inexorable vice. The young man fails, and 



19 

faints and dies amid earnest deprecations and deep regrets. 
It is our last melancholy duty to deliver the poor remains 
of youthful beauty and manly promise to his natural pa- 
rents, to be buried in the living grave of a disappointed, 
dishonored home. 

If there be a sadder sight it is only that of a young 
heart soured, in the midst of the amenities of Literature 
and by the altars of Religion, towards its only true friends, 
reckless of the propagation of vices that have embittered 
its own life and poisoned its once sweet home ; resolutely 
bent, insanely resolved, on the temptation of early virtue 
and the ruin of innocence ; pressing the bitter cup to un- 
suspecting lips and pouring the " cursed hebenon " into 
unconscious ears. No fouler murder cries to Heaven, 
Such spectacles, rare among us, are not peculiar to seats 
of learning ; they every where blight the fondest hopes 
of age, and darken the bright picture of youth. They 
are more remarkable in academic life, because the victim 
is a costlier sacrifice and the place polluted by the immo- 
lation more conspicuous and more sacred. 

A pretty careful observation has satisfied me that the 
chances are decidedly in favor of the educated. How 
small a part of any generation come to much in any line 
of life. The boys with whom we set out, the playmates 
of our first bright years, where are they ? How many 
vegetated well for a few summers, and withered and rot- 
ted. How many imbruted by vulgar profligacy, sunk 
early to forgotten graves. More, clearly more, I am sure, 
die of dissipation, without leaving the home of their 
childhood, more in proportion, than are found to stain the 
annals of College by their revels, and profane classic 
ground by their corruption. Science is not wisdom ; 
learning is not virtue ; but wisdom is yet wiser for the 
truths of science, and virtue somewhat safer with the 
lights of learning. And under the protection of God, I 
know no place so safe for a son as a well principled, well 
ordered seat of science, nor any discipline so likely with 



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God's blessing, to preserve him from the dangers of the 
critical age of incipient manhood as the discipline of good 
learning and Christian philosophy. 

The application of these remarks to the immediate ob- 
jects of this Society is too obvious to detain us long. 

We hope to do something, by the promotion of Aca- 
demic and Theological Education at the West, to preserve 
its teeming population from misdirection, misrule and su- 
perstition. If there be any other way to effect this object, 
but by the elevation of the public mind, we profess no 
knowledge of any such way. If the public mind of that 
vast multitude, assembled from all countries, is to be ele- 
vated, liberalized, Christianized, saved, it is to be done by 
institutions of knowledge and religion. And if any body 
may be expected to know the value of these institutions, 
who so likely to do so as those, who have seen their ope- 
ration in their own native, prospered, happy New England ? 
Who are under such obligations to do something to ex- 
tend the blessings of Education, as we who have enjoyed 
them ? Who owe so much to the enlightened, liberal pol- 
icy of their ancestors ? Who are bound by such trans- 
cendent gifts of knowledge and means of knowledge ? 
And of whom may heaven justly require such sacrifices 
for the less favored children of the same Father and heirs 
of the same inheritance of liberty and Christianity ; — an 
inheritance to be fully enjoyed by ourselves and transmit- 
ted to coming generations, only through the same means, 
by which it was secured and handed down to us — by in- 
stitutions of Learning and Religion, such as the Fathers 
planted wherever they made a clearing in the wilderness ; 
such as reared the great men of the Revolution ; the men 
who have filled the Professions, and framed the Constitu- 
tions, and enacted the Laws and administered the Justice, 
and guided the destinies of this country. 



